Pensacola Beach Spaceship House

Spaceship House Pensacola Beach FL

Tourist attractions in Pensacola Beach, Florida are plentiful and include sand that looks like snow, an average of 340 warm sunny days, original blended cocktails and a giant spaceship. Yep, you read that correctly – a giant spaceship. It’s a novelty you don’t find in most beach towns and is likely the quirkiest attraction on Santa Rosa Island.

It’s located on the north side of Via De Luna Drive; a short beach cruiser bike ride east of the main village. It landed here over three decades ago and currently houses the Pensacola Beach Preservation and Historical Society. It looks like a life-sized B-Roll movie prop complete with an old-school alien smiling at you from behind the porch door.

It’s actually a prefabricated home designed in 1968 by Finnish architect Matti Suuronen who dubbed it ‘Futuro House’. A helicopter helped it land on its current launch pad in the early seventies. Suuronen originally designed it to be a versatile lightweight fiberglass ski cabin with built-in modern furniture.

Maybe he was on to something because this spaceship has resisted lift off for four decades worth of floods, tornadoes and hurricanes; requiring little more than minor facelifts and the occasional paint job in upkeep. It even held its ground through Hurricane Ivan, which completely immersed its base in water. Suuronen built fewer than a hundred of these unusual homes and only six that still exist today.

Pensacola Beach’s spaceship house receives 500 visitors every year and has more than 3,000 Facebook Fans. It is currently owned by Historical Society President, Victoria Clarkin, who often adorns for holidays by turning it into a giant pumpkin on Halloween or putting Santa hats on the aliens at Christmas.

Clarkin’s dedication to her house means that visitors will likely increase in years to come. She dreamed of owning it as a child and said, “I just knew the spaceship was going to own me one day.” If unusual accommodation is your childhood dream, Clarkin does rent it out to visitors.